GD Survivor XI - horvie78 crowned champ. Topic

Well, here I am in the final 2. It was a great run and I'm even more excited for the fact that I share this final 2 with horvie. He was a great alliance for me from the start of the game and I think that he was an important piece of the puzzle for me. Coming into the game the theme was "The Brain". This is why I think I deserve to win. If anyone played to the theme more than me then I'd be surprised to know who it was. As always in Survivor the goal is to Outwit, Outthink and Outplay your opponents, which I also clearly did. I'm not going to put down the final person standing in my way, because he obviously deserves to be here as well, but I am going to compare us and give you guys 2 different reasons for voting.

At the start of this game I found myself in an alliance with jhard, trev, and horvie and I was fine with that, but the last time I played survivor I learned quick that you can't trust people. Well, they earned my trust quickly when the first idol clues came out and we spent a whole night tossing ideas back and forth about what it could be. After the others made their guesses, which I wasn't ready to do, I noticed that some others that traded clues made some guesses that didn't work with the clue they gave us. It didn't take long for me to figure out which clue they had and I put it all together and won the first idol. Turns out this is a bad thing. This is where things got tricky.

After the tribe merge I was left with nobody from my alliance or my original tribe. That's when I met up with csudak. That's also when the fake Polabonez came in and tricked some of us into giving up their alliances. Funny thing about that was that golfpro, the fake Pola, came to me and wanted me to join him in voting out csudak and showed me that he had all this info. Thinking on my feet and deciding how he could use that info against a lot of us, I went to csudak to let him in on the gig and tried to sway the others. The thing is, according to the message Casey sent, he knew I had the idol and I'd be an eventual target, if he got my message then it clarified that. That's when I fell asleep in Pola's garage after a heavy night of drinking and couldn't find my way out. As a reward for finding my way out Pola gave me the second Idol, which was the most powerful. I then decided to play the first idol when the vote came up that I knew was going to eliminate golfpro, but it took the pressure off of me and nobody would know that I had the next idol. Just to be safe, I gave the idol to another player in case I got voted out the next time around. You may think this is stupid, but it wasn't at all and if that other player, would have played it when I told him then he would probably be sitting here in the final 2 and not one of us. And no Casey, I didn't lie to you about that, I just told you that an original member of my alliance had it, which I was.

At the next tribe merge, I thought it was great how my alliance ended up together again. It was a tribe of 8, my alliance was already well known thanks to golfpro, but for some reason the others thought their best bet to make it farther was to team up with us rather than team up against us. We were 4, they were 4, a firebuilding challenge would have been in their favor more than teaming with us. Now my decisions start affecting the jury. The first person to come to us was dublinuf. We allowed him to join us and then he wanted psap to be the 6th member of out alliance. Bhaz came to us as well and I told him from the start that I was going to give him a chance to prove himself and if he did then we'd keep him as long as we could. I never told him that he was part of the alliance and to be honest I don't know why he'd be so upset like he got backstabbed, because he didn't. He just chose the wrong path to take. I was actually surprised that others in the alliance were going to vote out dubs because we told him he was part of the group, but it all worked out and dubs made the final 10.

At the final 10 we were outnumbered and we knew it. But, instead of joining against us, we added Arfy and dubs to out group, I guess. The first vote came and we all agreed that sjurat would be first to go. That's when dublinuf came up with the off the wall comment that sjurat likely had an idol and would play it. Why would he play it so early? Why would dubs think he had an idol? There was a vote after the third idol challenge that sjurat could have been targeted, why didn't he play it then? Yes, dubs, I put 2 and 2 together and realized you were trying to save sjurat and possibly deceived the alliance. It wasn't trev. Poor guy took some heat that he didn't deserve. Really, there should have been no heat, because even dublinuf admitted that sjurat was an alliance of his after the fact. Even dublinuf supposedly wanted me and jhard to turn on horvie and trev and supposedly use him to get to the final 2. Now if he had Arfy and sjurat around and me and jhard helped him then we weren't far off from getting screwed over. Anyway, the person that went down was Nyaggie. It kind of ticked me off because Nyaggie was always honest with me when we were in the second tribe together and he helped me out. Yes, dubs, it wasn't trev that left us out to dry because he didn't vote with the group, it was me. I wasn't going to vote for nyaggie because he didn't deserve to go that way. He wasn't our target, wasn't supposed to be, but it got changed up to save someone else. That whole situation showed me that dubs had to go next.

I planted the seed in the mind of the other 4 that dubs had to go and they were all for it. That gave Arfy a chance to vote out one of our alliance and keep the scales tipped the other way. The problem was that at this point the others seen Arfy as a bigger threat than a 4 person alliance. REALLY? I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that they weren't using The Brain. I even sitemailed csudak to get him to vote dubs with us, but it wasn't to be. Arfy and dubs tied and we all know how that goes. Arfy went home, with the idol I gave him. Yes, Arfy was my original alliance to start the game. I even warned him that others were talking about eliminating him, but he got over confident that you guys wouldn't try to screw him and you all did. After Arfy was gone, there was no more nice guy left in me. I knew Casey had the idol based on his guess and the way he asked me to let him know if he was the target of a vote. Once he admitted it to me, I gave him the scenario that he couldn't pass up.

Knowing that a tie could hurt my alliance, I added csudak to the mix. I made him realize that if I could keep him around until the final 5 then he could use the idol to make the final 4. Unfortunately that meant that one of my alliance had to go home at that point, but it was the only way to avoid a tie and things getting swung the other direction with a firebuilding challenge. If we got outnumbered, we surely would have been picked off one by one. Dublinuf sent me his sitemail about still wanting to help me and jhard, but I already knew he had another alliance with sjurat and just wanted us to not vote for him. We picked off dubs, sjurat and tsut. Now it was time for Casey to play the idol. He did and unfortunately trev went home, but someone had to. Then Casey won the next challenge which helped get him to the final 3. At this time jhard was on vacation and just decided everyone should vote for him. Now the final 3 and it was a matter of who won and who got to go with them.

To sum this up, it was nothing personal to anyone. You guys were just another player that made bad decisions and bad alliances. It very well could have been anyone of you in my spot had you used your BRAIN a little more and made better choices and won a couple idols. You can vote for horvie, who clearly was the good guy that came along for the ride. He didn't lie to anyone and he played the game honorably. Or you can vote for me who proved to be the better player by winning multiple idols and using some very good strategy to get to the end. Is the name of the game Survivor: The Friend, Out handshake, Out help others and Out tie? No, the game was Survivor: The Brain, Outwit, Outthink and Outplay. I know some of you will vote the only way you planned on, but hopefully some of you will vote based on the spirit of the game.

2 Questions for ghutton:
1) If you knew that I had the idol and you had no intention of letting me get to the end, why not vote me off at the 6th vote when tsut was voted? Why take the chance of me winning a few immunities and getting to the end which I almost did? If you blindside me there, then you guys can easily take out tsut the next vote, then you have your 4 man alliance sitting at the end.
2) Did you tell anyone else, at any point before I used it and after I had confirmed it that I had an idol?

First of all, THANK YOU to everybody who made this game such a blast to play! I spent much more time analyzing sporting events and strategizing with other players than I ever imagined. I've enjoyed playing this game so much that, win or lose, I have volunteered to host Survivor XII in March (I will give you a preview of that after voting is over). But now, here is why I believe that I deserve to win Survivor XI...

1. I did an incredible job keeping the numbers on my side! Because of this, I was able to reach the final tribal council without having to make big, backstabbing moves. Forming these alliances WERE my big moves!!

a) I was the one who INITIATED the formation of the trevnasty, jhard, ghutton, and horvie alliance. I am a first-time Survivor player and before this game started, I had only communicated with one other contestant (Coach Deen) because he took over my D2 team in Leahy. At that point, the probability of me making it to the final vote was extremely low! It was my strategy from the very beginning to align with other new and inexperienced players. Upon looking at old Survivor threads, I knew that many of this season's participants had previously worked together in alliances...and I assumed that a bunch of alliances were being formed by these Survivor veterans before the game had even started. I figured that if I didn't form an alliance with new players, I would get picked off by veteran players. I read through old Survivor threads to see who had not played and also looked for tribe-mates that had a low number of forum posts, which identified trevnasty and jhard as players to align with. I contacted them, and within two days the three of us had formed a solid alliance. One of them (Jhard, if I remember right) had already been communicating with ghutton, so after the next day our 4-some was formed. This alliance was a pleasure to work with. Nobody controlled the group's actions...it was a collective effort, which was why we were so strong and continued to work with each other. During each vote, it was a different member putting their foot down and the others would listen. We had a few rocky moments toward the middle of the game (Bhaze vs. Dubs, and the final 9 vote), but still had trust in each other even after that.

b) When we merged into 3 tribes, I was the only Drastic Allusions member on my new tribe. I noticed that there were 3 former ASI players (psap, coach deen, and bhazlewood), so my goal was to form a 4-person voting alliance with them. I sent psap and coach deen long sitemails committing to an alliance with them and bhazlewood, while being straight-forward about my previous alliance. They were also considering dustin lema, but because of my honesty and thorough sitemails, ended up accepting and trusting me as their 4th member. This was vital, as only 4 members survived that tribe.

c) Going into the final 9 vote, I had some talks with csudak. He basically stated that he was a free agent and wanted to get as far as possible. From our conversations, I felt like I could trust him and helped convinced the guys to strike a deal with him to become the 5th member of our alliance. If csudak didn't come to our side, there would have been a fire-building challenge at the final 8 vote, which could have created a completely different game. This move guaranteed that I would make it to the final 5. And my trusting conversations with csudak helped me survive the final 5 and final 4 vote (when csudak used the idol and won immunity), as he did not vote for me.

d) I won the final immunity challenge, guaranteeing my seat here in front of you all!

2. I did not make any strong enemies in this game (at least I don't think I did!), which kept me from being a voting target...and will help me gain jury votes (hint-hint)??? When strategizing, I tried to be as honest and straight-forward as possible. If I knew that something was going to happen, I would confirm it. If I didn't knew or didn't think it would happen, I would say that it "was a possibility" instead of lying and saying it would happen. I stayed loyal to my alliances. I do admit that there were thoughts of betraying them after what happened in the final 9 vote (which is explained in Ghutton's speech) and for the reason that only two of us could be in the finals, but I never acted on those thoughts. I believe that I also stayed on people's "good side" by being a dedicated team-player during the tribe challenges. I always contributed my picks and usually did extra research on the teams and players involved.

I could go on and list a few more things, but I'd rather get to the KEY ISSUE that is most likely going to decide the winner of Survivor XI...GOOD VS. EVIL. The biggest difference between Ghutton and I was in our interaction with jury members outside of our alliance. Ghutton obviously strategized much more with almost everybody in the game. I steered away from making extra deals because 1) I knew many of you were dangerous players from reading previous Survivor threads...and 2) I was doing my best to play an honest and loyal game. I went with the strategy of creating an alliance with new players and staying loyal to them (as explained above).

In response to Ghutton's comment "You can vote for horvie, who clearly was the good guy that came along for the ride. He didn't lie to anyone and he played the game honorably": I'm not sure how many of you watch the Survivor TV show, but when there is a good/loyal player in the game, YOU DO NOT LET THEM GET TO THE END, because they always WIN! Examples are Ethan Zohn, JT Thomas, and Tom Westman who are former Survivor champs. Also think about Elizabeth (Australian Outback) and Rupert (Pearl Islands). They were voted out 4th and 6th because their tribe knew that they would win in the final tribal council. I played the honorable game and STILL made it to the end.

I'm not saying that I will win...that is for you to decide. Are you going to vote for Ghutton, who played a very strategic game but in the process betrayed many of you? Or are you going to vote for the loyal player, who still made it to the end without all of the extra trickery? I respect whichever way you choose to vote and trust that the proper Survivor champion will be crowned (whether it is Glenn or I), as you are all very good at this game. Most of you have made it far in multiple Survivor seasons, which is no coincidence. I have thoroughly enjoyed every moment spent playing this game with you, and would be honored to receive your vote! If you have questions, please ask them before 5pm as I will be heading out for NYE. If you don't ask before that, I will have to answer them tomorrow morning.

Lastly, good luck to Glenn. It has been a pleasure playing this game with you. Neither of us would be her if it weren't for the other. You saved my behind in the final 9 vote...I helped you find idols and brought you to this final tribal council. Together, we made moves within a strong alliance that got us to the end. May the best man win!

And...a big THANK YOU to Tyson for volunteering your time to host this outstanding game. The challenges and idol hunts were extremely creative and fun. I hope that you find your way to plenty of Jager tonight!!

So, here's the problem, though, ghutton. The outwit, outplay, outlast stuff includes not putting too many people on the jury that you yourself deceived, and frankly, you didn't do that.

For the record, yes, I definitely saved sjurat when that was your vote, because he was my primary alliance. I 100 percent knew it exposed me, but I was willing to risk losing to not turn on him. I did, know that csudak had the idol, and as far as I knew he was in a strong alliance with sjurat, which turned out to be false on Casey's end.

I don't fault your play, but I also don't think that the person the stabbed me in the back twice because he was convinced that I might do that to him later deserves my vote over the person who didn't, especially since I was actually ever going to target you and jhard and you knew that.

I honestly don't need to hear horvie's because I know that he outplayed you with me by not putting someone on the jury that should vote against him.

Posted by dublinuf on 12/31/2012 3:14:00 PM (view original):So, here's the problem, though, ghutton. The outwit, outplay, outlast stuff includes not putting too many people on the jury that you yourself deceived, and frankly, you didn't do that.

For the record, yes, I definitely saved sjurat when that was your vote, because he was my primary alliance. I 100 percent knew it exposed me, but I was willing to risk losing to not turn on him. I did, know that csudak had the idol, and as far as I knew he was in a strong alliance with sjurat, which turned out to be false on Casey's end.

I don't fault your play, but I also don't think that the person the stabbed me in the back twice because he was convinced that I might do that to him later deserves my vote over the person who didn't, especially since I was actually ever going to target you and jhard and you knew that.

I honestly don't need to hear horvie's because I know that he outplayed you with me by not putting someone on the jury that should vote against him.

You played hard, and 100 percent deserve to come in second.

If I had ANY idea that you and sjurat were tight then I would have gone with you tsut and sjurat, but he made no knowledge of that at any point. In fact the things he did say made me think you were the complete enemy. The biggest and most important, obviously, part of the game is you never want to fully show your hand at any point, cause you have no idea who the person you are talking to is really working with, but the truth is knowledge is power in this game. The more info that gets out there, the more likely you are to flush out the liars.

Because I had no idea, and I believe tsut had no idea as me and him were talking regularly, the 4 of us never had a chance. I had just piloted the idea to make the blindside on arfy and you and him were working together til that point, so there was no way I was going to reach out to you, cause I assumed you were going to try to make the move to be the 5th with horvie, ghutton, trev, and jhard.

I couldn't even take the chance of talking to you, cause if it made it back to horvie and ghutton, I would have broken their trust, which I believe was the only reason they let me go as far as I did.

Posted by csudak on 12/31/2012 2:35:00 PM (view original):2 Questions for ghutton:
1) If you knew that I had the idol and you had no intention of letting me get to the end, why not vote me off at the 6th vote when tsut was voted? Why take the chance of me winning a few immunities and getting to the end which I almost did? If you blindside me there, then you guys can easily take out tsut the next vote, then you have your 4 man alliance sitting at the end.
2) Did you tell anyone else, at any point before I used it and after I had confirmed it that I had an idol?

Never said I didn't have any intention of you getting to the end. Where was that in my post? I gave you every opportunity to get to the end. Even when horvie won I still thought you'd get there. Nobody knew you had the idol but me. If I gave that away then others would have tried to take you out.

Posted by dublinuf on 12/31/2012 3:14:00 PM (view original):So, here's the problem, though, ghutton. The outwit, outplay, outlast stuff includes not putting too many people on the jury that you yourself deceived, and frankly, you didn't do that.

For the record, yes, I definitely saved sjurat when that was your vote, because he was my primary alliance. I 100 percent knew it exposed me, but I was willing to risk losing to not turn on him. I did, know that csudak had the idol, and as far as I knew he was in a strong alliance with sjurat, which turned out to be false on Casey's end.

I don't fault your play, but I also don't think that the person the stabbed me in the back twice because he was convinced that I might do that to him later deserves my vote over the person who didn't, especially since I was actually ever going to target you and jhard and you knew that.

I honestly don't need to hear horvie's because I know that he outplayed you with me by not putting someone on the jury that should vote against him.

You played hard, and 100 percent deserve to come in second.

Actually you did target me. At the final 8 you voted for me even though you thought trev was the one that figured you out. At least be straight forward from this point out. Don't BS to make your vote look justified.

Posted by dublinuf on 12/31/2012 3:14:00 PM (view original):So, here's the problem, though, ghutton. The outwit, outplay, outlast stuff includes not putting too many people on the jury that you yourself deceived, and frankly, you didn't do that.

For the record, yes, I definitely saved sjurat when that was your vote, because he was my primary alliance. I 100 percent knew it exposed me, but I was willing to risk losing to not turn on him. I did, know that csudak had the idol, and as far as I knew he was in a strong alliance with sjurat, which turned out to be false on Casey's end.

I don't fault your play, but I also don't think that the person the stabbed me in the back twice because he was convinced that I might do that to him later deserves my vote over the person who didn't, especially since I was actually ever going to target you and jhard and you knew that.

I honestly don't need to hear horvie's because I know that he outplayed you with me by not putting someone on the jury that should vote against him.

You played hard, and 100 percent deserve to come in second.

If I had ANY idea that you and sjurat were tight then I would have gone with you tsut and sjurat, but he made no knowledge of that at any point. In fact the things he did say made me think you were the complete enemy. The biggest and most important, obviously, part of the game is you never want to fully show your hand at any point, cause you have no idea who the person you are talking to is really working with, but the truth is knowledge is power in this game. The more info that gets out there, the more likely you are to flush out the liars.

Because I had no idea, and I believe tsut had no idea as me and him were talking regularly, the 4 of us never had a chance. I had just piloted the idea to make the blindside on arfy and you and him were working together til that point, so there was no way I was going to reach out to you, cause I assumed you were going to try to make the move to be the 5th with horvie, ghutton, trev, and jhard.

I couldn't even take the chance of talking to you, cause if it made it back to horvie and ghutton, I would have broken their trust, which I believe was the only reason they let me go as far as I did.

My proof that I was just playing the game like everyone else. My strategy was just better at the end. Ill be happy with 2nd because horvie deserves 1st but be honest with yourselves before calling me out. I just made everyone aware of my roll because I thought it was the right thing to do at this point.

Posted by csudak on 12/31/2012 2:35:00 PM (view original):2 Questions for ghutton:
1) If you knew that I had the idol and you had no intention of letting me get to the end, why not vote me off at the 6th vote when tsut was voted? Why take the chance of me winning a few immunities and getting to the end which I almost did? If you blindside me there, then you guys can easily take out tsut the next vote, then you have your 4 man alliance sitting at the end.
2) Did you tell anyone else, at any point before I used it and after I had confirmed it that I had an idol?

Never said I didn't have any intention of you getting to the end. Where was that in my post? I gave you every opportunity to get to the end. Even when horvie won I still thought you'd get there. Nobody knew you had the idol but me. If I gave that away then others would have tried to take you out.

"Knowing that a tie could hurt my alliance, I added csudak to the mix. I made him realize that if I could keep him around until the final 5 then he could use the idol to make the final 4."

The way that sounds you were still always favoring your alliance over me. I guess in the end you just wanted me to do your dirty work and get rid of your alliance without having their blood on your hands so you could at least say you didn't vote them out. Well played.

I do wonder if you had won the last challenge who you would have taken with you.

I was all set to cast my vote, but the speeches *did indeed* sway me. Or rather one speech swayed me - to vote against the one who made it.

Amazing how this game plays out.

Hmm, so we should have kept you around for what reason? The only thing you did was try to make a side alliance with dublinuf if you guys made the final merge. But of course, you were playing completely honest? See guys, I had all the info, too much of it really. Not one of you can say that what I did was worse than anything you guys tried yourself. I'm just not as chicken sh!t to say it with the game on the line. There's really only 1 person that I can honestly say played straight up with everyone and that is trevnasty. Everyone else had some kind of deal to screw over another. If you all want me to start listing them I can. Just don't make me your scape goat to make yourself feel better.

Posted by csudak on 12/31/2012 2:35:00 PM (view original):2 Questions for ghutton:
1) If you knew that I had the idol and you had no intention of letting me get to the end, why not vote me off at the 6th vote when tsut was voted? Why take the chance of me winning a few immunities and getting to the end which I almost did? If you blindside me there, then you guys can easily take out tsut the next vote, then you have your 4 man alliance sitting at the end.
2) Did you tell anyone else, at any point before I used it and after I had confirmed it that I had an idol?

Never said I didn't have any intention of you getting to the end. Where was that in my post? I gave you every opportunity to get to the end. Even when horvie won I still thought you'd get there. Nobody knew you had the idol but me. If I gave that away then others would have tried to take you out.

"Knowing that a tie could hurt my alliance, I added csudak to the mix. I made him realize that if I could keep him around until the final 5 then he could use the idol to make the final 4."

The way that sounds you were still always favoring your alliance over me. I guess in the end you just wanted me to do your dirty work and get rid of your alliance without having their blood on your hands so you could at least say you didn't vote them out. Well played.

I do wonder if you had won the last challenge who you would have taken with you.

Actually I was countering dubs statement from last night that this was the better option for you. His option was BS because you were the odd man out since sjurat was his original alliance. Everyone knows that the final 4 anything can happen based on who wins immunity. I pointed out to you that if you held the idol you had a very good chance to make the final 2. Did I lie about that? Nope. I played straight up with you and you should know that. If I wanted you out then I could have told everyone you had the idol and blind sided you at the final 6. I really don't see how anyone can say I screwed them over. Only 2 people can make the final 2. 9 others weren't making it no matter how it played out. Someone was always going to be screwing over someone else. And Casey, I wasn't the one that didn't pick you at the end. You're acting like I picked horvie over you.